Stephen A. Smith Slams NFL For Deshaun Watson Decision: ‘Resembling Law Enforcement’ Without Revealing ‘What the Hell They Found’
ESPN star Stephen A. Smith — who has been on a leave of absence from his show First Take for a shoulder injury — called into the network in response to quarterback Deshaun Watson’s six-game suspension, and quickly launched into an angry rant tearing into the NFL for mishandling the case.
On Monday, Cleveland Browns star Watson was suspended for six games for violation of the NFL’s personal conduct policy. The case was decided by the arbitrator assigned to the matter, retired federal judge Sue L. Robinson.
Smith returned briefly to ESPN while he is rehabbing after a shoulder surgery to comment on the decision, initially clarifying that when he says “where there is smoke there’s fire,” he was “simply proclaiming that you can’t feign complete innocence in all of this.”
“What level of guilt, what level of culpability is for somebody else to determine,” continued Smith, “we want to give Deshaun Watson his just due from the standpoint that he has proclaimed his innocence.”
In March of this year, Watson denied any wrongdoing during a Cleveland Browns press briefing, claiming that he never assaulted any women.
The First Take anchor continued to note that he is “in no position to state whether [Watson] is innocent or guilty.”
Smith then tore into the NFL arguing that the league alluding to having relevant information and concealing it from the general public was a complete mishandling of Watson’s case:
The fact remains that the NFL put itself in this position. You had to agree with the players association to get an arbitrator involved, a third party that can look at the quote-unquote facts. Well, NFL was being tipped off about what those facts were when pushing for an indefinite suspension. So they have already given us the impression that they obviously know more than the general public knows and because they waited so long, because of the process that they okayed implementing. As a result, that forces us all to sit back and say, okay well what do you have? Because you have now put yourself in the position where you are trying to act like you are law enforcement.
When all you had to do as the National Football League—of course in constant with the players association to some degree be collective bargaining—was say this is our league and we don’t know how criminally negligent or culpable you may be. We don’t have that evidence and that information. What we do know is that we are a private industry and we have a right to make sure that we police anybody COMPROMISING our bottom line. And if you’ve done that, we’re gonna make a decision based on just that, so you handle your business and not impugn our league.
They didn’t do that here. What they did was put themselves in the position of resembling law enforcement. But law enforcement reveals to us what the hell they found and why they’ve come down with the level of condemnation they come down with. The NFL is not doing that and as a result, that’s creating more question marks and it’s attaching a level of guilt to Deshaun Watson, or innocence to Deshaun Watson that he may or may not deserve. And I think it is wrong for any professional sports league to put themselves in that position.
“That’s all I’m trying to say,” concluded the First Take anchor.
Smith is set to make a return to the anchor chair sometime in August, a seat he has occupied for over ten years.
Watch above via ESPN
